Jeweler in paradise

Rising organically from rice fields, Canadian jewelry designer John Hardy's newest jewelry showroom is a remarkable structure, located in the foothills of central

Bali

in a sleepy village called Mambal, on the outskirts of Ubud links of london sale .

Built entirely of bamboo and alang-alang grass, the 470-sq.-ft. building -- called Kapal Bambu, which means "ship of bamboo" -- is essentially two thatched 42-ft.-high walls that meet about a foot apart from each other at the top along an undulating curve. Sunlight pours in from above through a draping of translucent waxed cotton laid over the building's spine W Charm. 

Such an unconventional approach typifies the philosophy of Canadian-born Hardy, a dreamer and academic flunk who went on to build a $100 million-a-year jewelry business that is also the largest luxury manufacturer in

Bali

. Like thousands of hippies looking for a way out of the rat race, Hardy arrived in Bali in 1975 with little more than an art-college degree and a couple of hundred dollars. Soon Hardy's unique silver designs became a marker for kindred souls traveling through

Asia

. "People saw others wearing my jewelry in the airport, and it was like a secret code," he says. "Without speaking, they knew where the other had been." The code inspired a cult following and then, in 1989, Neiman Marcus placed its first order. Now, his designer line is carried by numerous department stores, frequently in an in-store shop U Charm.

The showroom was designed by Malaysian architect Cheong Yew Kuan, whose work includes not only the famous Hardy house in Sayan, Bali, but also leisure resorts throughout Asia and the

Caribbean

.

The showroom appears almost as a natural shelter one might stumble across in a forest, rather than a retail store housing exquisitely crafted jewels. In addition to the natural skylight overhead, the grass-and-bamboo walls are raised from the ground a few feet and supported by tree stumps at the base, with a good few feet of rice plants plainly visible from every angle of the store. "It is intended as a stunning, one-of-a-kind showroom that reflects the natural beauty of the property," Hardy says V Charm.

In addition to its durability, the bamboo's shape was utilized in the design to create the building's resulting silhouette -- often likened to the tall prow of a ship. Even most of the flooring is constructed from bamboo poles latched together with sugar-palm twine. The 86-ft.-long poles had to be transported to the site in the middle of the night, when the roads were less traveled.